


Famous Angels

by roboticonography



Category: Captain America (Movies), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Wonder Woman (2017)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2019-07-18 11:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16117307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticonography/pseuds/roboticonography
Summary: Peggy Carter is gradually adjusting to life in peacetime, when a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger leaves her questioning everything she thought she knew.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story eventually involves all of the tagged ships to some extent, but the central and most important relationship is the one between Peggy and Diana.
> 
> However! Please note that this is not a romantic Peggy/Diana story. I've seen some fantastic takes on that, but this is not one of them.
> 
> This story will eventually be about 8 chapters long, and will be updated when I have time.

_Put an ocean and a river between everybody else_  
_Between everything, yourself and home_  
_Put an ocean and a river_  
_Between everything, yourself and home_

 _Famous angels never come through England_  
_England gets the ones you never need_

—The National, “England”

 

* * *

 

During the war, there were stories, all with a common theme: a dark-haired woman, in a strange red-and-blue showgirl costume, fighting on the side of the Allies. She liberated camps, demolished weapons factories, destroyed armoured tanks. No one ever got more than a passing glimpse of her. The Nazis called her _Die Dame aus der Hölle_ —the Lady from Hell.

The Americans called her the Wonder Woman.

The Howling Commandos had quite a laugh over it, at Peggy’s expense: was she secretly the Wonder Woman? They’d never been spotted in the same place, come to think of it. Was it true she carried a sword? Everyone knew Peggy was good with a dagger. It wasn’t that much of a stretch. Had Howard Stark made the outfit? Could they see it?

“It’s with my laundry service, I’m afraid,” retorted Peggy, on one occasion when she was feeling unusually chipper. Steve and his boys had just returned after some narrow escape (she tried not to dwell on the fact that Steve’s safety and her good humour so often coincided).

Later, in a corner of the crowded mess hall, their heads together over a pot of coffee and a convoluted map, Steve confessed that he’d seen her. She was the genuine article; he’d watched her punch through a wall of solid concrete while barely breaking stride. Then—he claimed—she’d circled around and given him a nod and a wave before disappearing.

“It was only a second. Not so I’d know her if we met face to face. But she was fast. And strong.”

Peggy half-suspected him of pulling her leg. “I can assure you, I haven’t picked up a sword since I was on the fencing team at school.”

“I know it wasn’t you,” said Steve, with a charming earnestness. “You’re a lot more… and not so…” He made a frustratingly vague gesture before pinning one hand down with the other, as though he’d given too much away.

“Not so fast? Or strong?”

He turned a becoming shade of pink, but wisely held his tongue.

“She’s supposed to be very beautiful,” said Peggy carelessly. She studied the map, feeling Steve’s gaze settle on her.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Wouldn’t you?” She took a sip of her coffee, forgetting until too late that it was still scalding. Hoarsely, she added, “Captain America has more than his fair share of attractive admirers.”

“Maybe,” he replied. “But Steve Rogers only has eyes for one girl.”

Their eyes met, and hers fell.

Then she nudged his instep with the toe of her boot, and said, “Flattery isn’t going to get you out of this debrief any faster, I’m afraid.”

“Shucks,” said Steve, in the voice of his stage alter-ego.

And that was all.

A month later, to the day, she sat—alone—in the same corner, burning her mouth on the same vile coffee, and cursed herself for not taking the opening Steve had given her.

Several months after that, on a chilly London evening, she had her own encounter with the Wonder Woman.


	2. Chapter 2

Peggy had wangled herself a seat near the pub’s only public entrance, affording her a clear view of all the comings and goings.

It was sheer force of habit, of course. She hadn’t done any fieldwork in months; with Project Rebirth packed away, and the men returning home in ever-increasing waves, she wasn’t likely to see any more intelligence assignments for a while.

She wasn’t the type to cry into her whiskey and soda, but Peggy had to admit that it had been a disheartening week at the London SSR office. She’d had her opinions dismissed as overly emotional, had been called to task for the perceived faults of her entire gender, and was repeatedly sent to the canteen to fetch tea and coffee in the middle of meetings—while also being expected to take minutes of said meetings.

And it was only Tuesday.

She was brooding so deeply that she almost didn’t notice the tall, statuesque woman who had just entered the pub. Once noticed, though, she was impossible to miss.

She wore no coat, which was unusual for the time of year. She had the sophisticated air of a Parisienne: dark hair in a heavy coil at the nape of her neck, secured with a silver clip, and a fantastic merlot-coloured tunic dress that was all about simplicity and elegant drape, accented by a wide leather belt with an ornate silver buckle. The large molded cuffs she wore around her wrists also incorporated leather and silver; they reminded Peggy of a pair of gauntlets she’d once seen on display in the British Museum.

It was the sort of outfit that, on anyone less beautiful or imposing, would have looked slightly ridiculous.

Peggy recognized a fellow devotee to the art of style; as the woman caught her eye and approached, she prepared herself to answer questions about the provenance of either her coat or her handbag, both of which were relatively new and very much _à la mode_.

“May I join you?” the newcomer inquired instead, placing a hand on the chair currently occupied by Peggy’s handbag.

Peggy wavered, but the pub was packed, and it wouldn’t be long before someone asked again—and the odds were good that it would be someone less pleasant. At the very least, one could always talk about clothes.

So she put on a charming smile, and removed her bag. “Please do.”

“Thank you,” said the stranger, moving gracefully into the now-empty seat. “I’m surprised to see it so crowded on a Tuesday.” Her low, husky speaking voice put one in mind of Lauren Bacall, with just a splash of an accent that Peggy couldn’t immediately place.

“There was a football match on the wireless earlier.”

“I see. Englishmen and their sports.”

“American men seem to have the same fixation,” Peggy remarked, thinking of Steve’s endless baseball chatter. He’d kept threatening to take her to a Brooklyn Dodgers game when the war was over. She’d never thought she would miss it.

The woman was peering intently into Peggy’s face. It was a bit unnerving—all the more so because it felt somehow familiar. Peggy had an excellent memory for faces, and an even better memory for frocks, and she couldn’t recall whether or where she could possibly have encountered this stylish foreigner.

She decided to take the leap. “Have we met before?”

“In a manner of speaking. But we were never introduced. I am Diana.”

“Margaret Carter.” Peggy accepted the offered handshake, which turned out to be surprisingly firm. “I’m sorry, Diana, but you’ll have to refresh my memory. Did we work together?” She was absolutely certain they hadn’t, but one had to begin somewhere.

Diana took a deep breath. “We met the day you were born,” she said. “When I gave birth to you.”

Peggy’s first—and rather unkind—reaction was an incredulous, full-throated laugh.

Once that had subsided, she couldn’t help but feel sympathetic. The woman was unwell, of course. An awfully composed and competent sort of madness, but nonetheless.

Diana, meanwhile, had folded her hands together on the table, and was watching Peggy steadily. “You don’t believe me,” she observed.

“I should say not,” retorted Peggy. “We’re the same age—in fact, I’d wager I’m a few years older than you are.”

“You would lose your money.” Diana had a curiously calm determination about her. Peggy couldn’t help thinking that she was someone one would have liked to know better, under different circumstances. “I know it seems unlikely—”

“It’s a good deal more than unlikely. It’s bloody impossible.”

With the sort of timing generally only found on a West End stage, a large, unkempt man hove into view next to them. He was old enough to be Peggy’s father—and Diana’s as well, no matter what sorts of strange ideas she might have. His red, bloated face marked him as a habitual drinker, and he was in fine form.

“Hello, darlings!” he bawled, leaning heavily on the table. “What’re you having?”

Peggy schooled her features into a mask of polite neutrality, but before she could deliver a suitably crushing retort, Diana spoke first.

“A private conversation is what we are having,” she told him, pleasantly but conclusively. “Thank you for understanding.”

This seemed to give the interloper some pause, as he tried to discern exactly what he was being thanked for. “Lasses,” he began again, ploddingly, as though they might just be slow to catch on. “What’ll you have to drink?” There was no point in asking him the same question; he exuded a sour odour of stout mingled with sweat.

“I think you’ve had enough for both of us put together,” said Peggy, letting her irritation show.

“Now, don’t be like that,” he rumbled, and clapped a hand on Diana’s shoulder. “Give a fellow a fighting chance.”

The change in Diana was instant: her brows lowered, a crease appearing between them, and her spine became perfectly straight. She sat quite still, her palms flat on the table. “Remove your hand.” There was a catch in her voice like steel being unsheathed. “I will only ask once.”

Under the table, Peggy planted her feet firmly, ready to spring to the other woman’s aid if needed.

The man leaned closer to Diana, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. He murmured something, too low for Peggy to hear.

Three things happened in rapid succession. The man grabbed Diana by the collar; Peggy jumped to her feet; Diana, seemingly without effort, lifted him with one hand and tossed him across the room.

He landed heavily on one of the smaller corner tables, hard enough to collapse it. Glassware and plates on neighbouring tables crashed to the floor. An entire room full of armchair footballers glanced around at each other in abject confusion before turning, in waves, to stare at the two women.

“He did say he wanted a fighting chance,” said Diana evenly.

Peggy snatched up her handbag and pushed Diana out the door.

*

While they hadn’t exactly run away from the pub, they’d definitely taken off at a brisk trot, which hadn’t abated for several minutes. Peggy was chagrined to note that Diana—half a foot taller than she, with legs like a gazelle—didn’t appear to be the slightest bit winded.

“Where shall we go?” asked Diana—confidently, as though they were out on this little evening constitutional by mutual agreement.

Peggy slowed to a walk. “ _We_ ,” she said, “are not going anywhere. In fact, I think it’s time _we_ said good night.”

“We have not finished our conversation.”

“I think I’ve heard quite enough.”

Diana frowned. “You think I’m lying to you.”

“No. I believe that _you_ believe it.” It was the most charitable phrasing Peggy could summon at that moment. “But that doesn’t alter the fact that I have parents. I have a birth certificate, witnessed by a doctor, that lists both of their names.”

“Yes. Harrison and Amanda Carter,” said Diana promptly. “Signed by Dr. Samuel Oliver, of Wolverhampton.”

Peggy blinked.

“Dr. Oliver delivered you, and he forged the papers. Your parents and I both paid him for his discretion. We never met, but I saw their names on the form.”

Peggy stopped walking. She felt sick to her stomach—a side effect of combining whiskey and jogging, most likely.

Diana slowed to a halt, still talking. “He told me they were good people, who couldn’t conceive a child.”

“Well, I have a brother,” Peggy declared. “Do you suppose they paid for him too?”

She’d meant it as a rhetorical punch, but Diana gave a seemingly straightforward answer. “I couldn’t say. I was out of the country for several years after you were born.”

“Why bother to contact me at all, then? It sounds as though you were well shut of me.”

Peggy hadn’t intended to be cruel. She wanted to be as clear as possible about the fact that she was not going to entertain this wild nonsense, and Diana didn’t seem to want to accept a soft refusal. But she knew the second she heard the words aloud that she’d crossed a line.

Diana looked at her very gravely, without speaking. Peggy got the distinct impression that she was disappointed.

When she spoke again, her tone was more formal. “Someone has been collecting information about me. And about where I come from. He is French, but has connections in the British intelligence community. And at the Strategic Scientific Reserve.”

“The what?” said Peggy, adopting a blank expression.

Diana gave her a look that made it perfectly clear she knew Peggy was full of shit.

“How do you know what this person has been collecting?”

“I have my own connections. They tell me you were an excellent code-breaker, before you decided to become a spy.”

Under Diana’s unwavering gaze, Peggy felt a bit like a lab specimen: pinned to a board, sliced open and laid bare. It wasn’t a nice feeling. She hadn’t even told her parents about the work she’d done at Bletchley Park, let alone everything that came after. Yet somehow, this stranger had access to the most intimate details of her entire life.

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that someone _is_ looking for you. What’s the worst thing they’re going to find? Were you a collaborator? Have you done something blackmail-worthy—aside from, presumably, falling pregnant out of wedlock?”

“No.”

“Then what have you got to worry about?”

“Let me show you.”

Diana stepped around the corner, out of sight of the street, but still within Peggy’s view. She unbuckled her belt, then tugged at some hidden fastening on the side of her dress.

“There’s no need for that,” said Peggy, alarmed.

Diana pulled the dress up over her shoulders, draping it across her neck like a cowl. Underneath, rather than the usual undergarments, she had on something that looked a bit like a showgirl’s outfit… and considerably more like a sleeveless, skirted suit of armour.

It was astonishing, and unlike anything Peggy had ever seen, outside of a museum exhibit. The colours were gorgeous, the metalwork sublime—and the burnished surface had the kinds of nicks and scratches that could only have come with use. The detailing on the armour matched the fine work on her gauntlets, which suddenly seemed more functional when considered as part of an ensemble.

Peggy swore under her breath.

Diana smirked. “You know who I am, I take it.”

“Well, I—I’ve heard the stories, of course. And a friend of mine claimed to have met you.” Quite unexpectedly, she added, “I teased him about it.”

Diana was already smoothing her dress back into place. “Was it Captain America?”

Peggy froze, rooted to the ground.

“I saw him on the battlefield on several occasions. I let him see me only once.”

“Really? That must have been an interesting conversation.” Peggy gave her the opening, curious to see if Diana would give the game away. It was the con artist’s habit to embroider a story with flourishes designed to further ensnare the listener.

“I was knocking down a wall. We waved to each other from a distance. I would have liked to speak to him, but there was never time. You knew him well?”

“We worked together.” It sounded hollow, even in her own ears—an incomplete, insincere summary of what they’d been to one another. And what they had almost been.

“And he was your friend. I am sorry for your loss,” said Diana, and took hold of Peggy’s wrist.

Peggy jerked her hand away, disconcerted. “I’m afraid there isn’t much I can do to help you,” she said brusquely.

“You misunderstand. I am not asking for your help. I am offering mine. If this man knows who I am, he may already suspect the truth about where you come from. You…” She paused, as if to collect herself, and took a deep breath. “You have a proud heritage. Your grandmother is the queen of the Amazons, and ruler of the island of Themyscira, where I was born.”

“Never heard of it.”

“No. And you won’t find it on any map. Its true location is a mystery, even to those who have been there.”

Peggy was still halfway convinced that Diana was howling mad. But the armour, and her knowing the details of Steve’s brief sighting of the Wonder Woman, were things that couldn’t simply be dismissed. Steve hadn’t told that story to anyone else, as far as Peggy knew.

“You must admit, it’s… a lot to swallow.”

Diana nodded.

“And you haven’t any proof to back up your claims, I take it?”

“I have only my word.”

Peggy sighed heavily. “Let me look into it on my own. What’s the best way for me to reach you?”

“I am on the telephone.” She said it solemnly, but something in her expression betrayed her amusement at the quaintness of the medium.

“I’m not, but I’ll take the number.” There was a public call-box on the corner she could use, but Peggy kept that to herself; she wasn’t keen on giving Diana too many details about where her flat was located.

“Do you still live with your parents?”

“They died,” said Peggy shortly. “Air raid.”

Diana looked as though she was about to say something comforting. Instead, she handed Peggy a slip of paper with an address and telephone number written in a strange, elegant hand. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

Completely at a loss, Peggy tucked the paper into her coat pocket, then picked a direction at random and started walking. She moved as if in a trance, her feet picking up speed without conscious direction, as though she might somehow be able to outrun her rampaging thoughts. She willed herself not to look back for several blocks.

When she finally gave in and glanced over her shoulder, Diana had already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For obvious reasons, I’m going with the 1919 birthdate for Peggy, as specified in the deleted scene from Avengers.
> 
> In case there’s any confusion about the antiquated phrasing: to be “on the telephone” means you have a phone connected in your home, which not everyone did at that time.


	3. Chapter 3

After a sleepless night, Peggy decided the only thing for it was to investigate this case, as thoroughly and dispassionately as she would any other. Either Diana’s story was true, or it was false. Once she’d gathered some evidence, she could move forward from there.

Her first step was to go to the SSR archives, and pull everything she could find related to the Wonder Woman. Truth be told, it was nice to have something to do at the office that didn’t involve waiting on the men; no one in the records room gave her any trouble, as everyone assumed that she’d been deputized by one of the field agents to gather documents.

The pickings were slim; most of the reports she did find concerned a little town in Belgium that had apparently been paid a visit by an “angel of the battlefield” in 1918. The entire town had later been wiped out by poison gas, so the records were spotty at best.

Signing the files out, she spotted a familiar name on several of the circulation cards. Someone else appeared to have taken a recent interest in the Wonder Woman: Peggy’s former supervisor at Bletchley.

She recalled what Diana had said, about the mysterious Frenchman having connections in the community. It would be especially unwise to overlook a woman as a possible suspect. She made a note of it.

One of the Belgium reports made reference to a photograph, which—frustratingly—seemed to have been misplaced. It took Peggy several days and two trips to central filing to hunt down an archival copy on microfilm.

It was a group portrait: in the centre, wearing her signature armour and holding a sword and shield, was Diana, completely untouched by the passage of almost thirty years.

There were four men in the photo. Peggy scrutinized each of their faces in turn; if the dates were accurate, and Diana’s story was true, one of these men could very well be her birth father.

Two of the men hadn’t been identified in the file notes at all, to Peggy’s frustration. The other two were Charles Alastair Allaway and Steven Rockwell Trevor, both deceased. Sergeant Allaway, a Scot, had passed away in 1936, after a lengthy illness. Captain Trevor, an American, had been killed in action in 1918—in a plane crash, the details of which were classified.

The dust in the records room was starting to affect her eyes; she had to keep blotting them with her handkerchief. She decided to return to her desk before she smeared her makeup and drew attention to herself.

At home, she got out Michael’s service portrait, and her own, and set them side-by-side. Michael had been slim and fair, almost delicate; he’d often been ill when they were children, though he’d grown out of it. Peggy was dark, tanned easily, and had been the sturdier, heartier child, rarely ever sick.

Neither of them had particularly looked like one another—or like their parents, for that matter.

She knew the next step was to get out the boxes of her parents’ things and go through them. It was something she couldn’t quite bring herself to do, not just yet.

Perhaps, in her heart of hearts, she already knew what she was going to find.

*

Howard leaned on the downstairs bell at just after nine, providing a welcome distraction. Peggy’s landlady was surprisingly tolerant of her tenant’s eclectic social circle—which may have had something to do with the fact that Howard flirted with her shamelessly, even going so far as to bring her liquor or chocolates when he called at an especially inappropriate time of day.

He prowled into Peggy’s flat, taking in the scene with the half-smirk that seemed permanently etched on his features. “Put on a fresh face, kid,” he said, without bothering to inquire after such trivialities as her health or state of mind. “I’m taking you out to eat.”

“I’m afraid this is the only face I’ve got,” Peggy deadpanned.

“How about one with a smile on it?”

She rolled her eyes, but as terrible as it was, the line worked: she couldn’t help smiling.

“Better,” said Howard.

“It’ll have to do, because I’m not changing my dress or my hair. We’ll have to go somewhere you can stand to be seen with me as I am.”

“I’d be seen with you anywhere, pal. Even if you wore nothing at all.”

Peggy ignored the single entendre and grabbed her coat and pocketbook, declaring, “Lead on, Macduff.”

Howard took her to one of the many gentlemen’s clubs he’d managed to worm his way into since arriving in town. Peggy’s own financial circumstances weren’t exactly lacking, but occasionally she was reminded that Howard possessed a truly colossal amount of money for one solitary man to get through. Not that it stopped him trying, of course.

Women were only allowed as far as the non-members lounge, which was generally where the clubmen entertained their girlfriends or mistresses. Peggy disapproved of the institution on general principle, but at least the food was decent, and it was quiet enough that she didn’t have to bellow across the table.

Howard’s steady stream of chatter served as a tonic for her mood. Their conversations were like verbal badminton: no heavy subjects, just the light serve and return of witty banter, and the occasional landing of a masterful dart. Peggy found it satisfying to play the game with someone just as skilled as she. It was nearly impossible to have an existential crisis while Howard was cheerfully banging on about everything under the sun.

She considered unburdening herself to him about Diana, but quickly realized what a disaster that would be: he’d insist upon being introduced, and once he’d met her, he’d immediately try to sleep with her. That would very likely end with Diana putting him in traction—unless she took a fancy to him, which was an even more horrifying prospect.

The person she really wanted to talk to about it, she realized, was Steve. He’d always listened to even her most absurd, half-baked musings without either dismissing her thoughts or trying to finish them for her. She missed being taken so seriously, even when she wasn’t being entirely serious.

But Steve was gone, and that was all.

Except that it _wasn’t_ all—not to Howard, whose present preoccupation was his Arctic expedition. It didn’t take him long to steer the conversation towards that particular topic; he described the route he intended to take, the various stopping points, some of the new equipment he’d be bringing along to try out. He’d managed to track some unusual radiation that had given him a fairly reliable search window, and he’d already sent a few men ahead to Greenland to establish a base of operations nearby.

“The strange thing is that the energy signature from the jet goes completely cold just a few miles off the coast. You’d think there’d be witnesses—a wreck that big, so close to land, and no one saw a thing? No noise when it touched down, or water displacement, or debris washing ashore, or—” Howard suddenly seemed to recollect to whom he was speaking, and concluded, rather anticlimactically, “It’s a little odd.”

Peggy, careful to keep her tone neutral, replied, “Indeed.”

“I’ve still got openings on the crew, if you’re looking for a change of scenery.”

“I’d rather not,” she said crisply. “For one thing, I’ve nothing to wear.”

“Peggy…”

“It’s a fool’s errand, Howard. A shot in the dark.”

“You don’t think he’s worth that?”

It was a tired argument they were having, threadbare around the edges. He didn’t seem able to recognize the essential fact: that _finding Steve’s body_ wasn’t the same as _bringing Steve home_.

Neither would ever convince the other, and Peggy wasn’t about to ruin a pleasant evening for trying.

“What I think isn’t relevant,” she said quietly. Then, in a more conciliatory tone: “When are you leaving?”

“Not for another few weeks still. I’ve greased every palm I can grab hold of, but it’s still damn near impossible to get supplies right now. Face it, pal, you’re stuck with me for the time being.”

“I’d say that calls for a drink.” She suited the action to the words, draining her whiskey glass in two swallows.

“Let’s get out of here,” Howard suggested. “We’ll go somewhere with better music and cheaper booze. And no more shop talk.”

“That,” said Peggy, already on her feet, “is the best idea you’ve had all night.”

*

Peggy stumbled into her flat a few hours later, mildly shipwrecked. It had taken her two tries to get the key in the lock. Both Howard and Mr. Jarvis had offered to see her upstairs, but she’d refused; she didn’t entirely trust the motives of the former, and wasn’t especially keen to embarrass herself in front of the latter.

She thought sleep might come to her easily, but it didn’t; the alcoholic haze soon dissipated, while her unsettling thoughts continued to multiply. 4 a.m. found her staring at the ceiling, wide awake and stone sober.

Conceding defeat, she got up, made a cup of tea, and started pulling out boxes from beneath her bed.

Peggy’s mother—the only mother she’d ever known—had been meticulous about record-keeping. In a vast, water-spotted accordion folder, she had carefully filed away the Carter siblings’ baptism certificates, their medical records, and every award (Michael) and reprimand (Peggy) that each had received from their respective schools.

One of the last entries, of course, was the letter informing the Carters that their son had been killed in action.

Combing through the folder, Peggy happened upon Michael’s birth certificate first. She unfolded it and smoothed it across her knee.

Dr. Samuel Oliver had presided over Michael’s birth, four years before Peggy’s. The place of birth was given as Wolverhampton.

Peggy’s own birth certificate held no surprises: the same doctor, the same hospital.

She continued digging through the file. There were no other official records related to either birth, but there were two receipts for post-office money orders—similar amounts, made over from her father to Dr. Oliver, far in excess of ordinary hospital fees. The dates supported Diana’s claim.

As far as Peggy knew, her parents didn’t know anyone in Wolverhampton. They’d never spoken of going there, or mentioned the fact that both Peggy and Michael had been born a hundred miles away from where they’d grown up. And they’d always been such homebodies; it made no sense for them to travel so far from home at all, let alone to deliver a baby—twice.

But it made perfect sense, of course, if they were making the journey to secretly claim a child that wasn’t theirs.

As soon as it was light outside, Peggy went out to the corner, notebook in hand, and put a call through to her former supervisor.

Etta Candy had been a friendly acquaintance of Peggy’s parents for years before Peggy had been recruited to Bletchley Park. Prior to joining the war effort, Peggy had always assumed Miss Candy was exactly what she seemed: a sweet, unassuming spinster typist. What she was, in fact, was a sort of den mother for fledgling codebreakers, and a tireless champion for women’s rights—not to mention a dab hand at codebreaking in her own right.

It was unlikely that Peggy’s parents would have said anything to Miss Candy about a secret adoption. However, Etta Candy rarely missed a trick, and if anything had seemed unusual at the time of Peggy’s birth, she would have certainly noticed.

And she had been digging into Diana’s past recently. A curious coincidence, that.

Miss Candy was clearly still an early riser: she answered the telephone almost immediately, and invited Peggy to call round to her office in an hour. “I’m with the Home Office now, my dear. Clerical work. A bit dull. But then, I suppose, we could all use a rest.”

Peggy couldn’t help but agree.

*

Miss Candy’s office was approximately the size of a sardine tin—but, much like Miss Candy herself, impeccably tidy.

She gave Peggy a hearty welcome, ushered her into the room’s most comfortable chair, and listened intently as she recounted a somewhat abridged version of the week’s revelations. Peggy didn’t mention Diana at all, but focused on the strange circumstances of her and Michael’s births, and the documents her mother had kept.

“That is rather peculiar,” mused Miss Candy. “You’re certain you don’t have any people in Wolverhampton that your mum or dad might have simply failed to mention? Someone they’d had a row with?”

“Quite certain.”

“Well,” Miss Candy declared, unhelpfully. Peggy waited, but apparently that was all the wisdom her former mentor had to offer.

“I’m sorry to bother you about it. I thought it rather curious, that’s all.”

“Oh, it’s no bother. Always glad to have visitors. Fancy a cuppa?” Peggy’s hesitation must have shown, because Miss Candy added, “The real stuff, not that slop they used to serve out of a bucket in the mess. I have a camp stove and a kettle all to myself.”

“In that case, yes, please.”

“Half a tick,” Miss Candy assured her, already headed to the door.

Peggy’s eyes fell on a bulletin board on the far wall behind the desk, where Miss Candy had tacked up a number of photos. There was a group photo of Peggy and some of her cohorts from Bletchley, and another of a younger Etta Candy with a group of like-minded women wearing sashes, who had apparently chained themselves to a wall or a gate. However, what caught Peggy’s eye was the yellowing snapshot tucked behind the Bletchley photo: a young Captain Steven Trevor, lounging confidently against the fuselage of an aircraft, rakish grin firmly in place.

Peggy glanced around the spotless office. She had only moments to conduct a search, and no idea where to begin. She tried the desk drawers; all locked, as was the filing cabinet. At the sound of footsteps in the hall, she took a chance and rifled through the outgoing mail.

In amidst the usual office bumf, there was a plain envelope addressed to an A. Langlois, in France. The address was typed. No return address. Unlike the rest of the letters in the tray, it was already stamped.

Diana had mentioned that her stalker was French.

Peggy quickly pocketed the envelope. If it turned out to be innocent, she could pop it in the post, and no one would be any the wiser.

“Here we are,” sang Miss Candy, bustling in with the tea-tray mere seconds after Peggy had landed in her seat. “And a lovely bit of cake, too.”

“How jolly,” said Peggy, blithely. She knew the envelope was securely tucked away, but she had to steel herself against the urge to look down or pat her dress pocket.

The cake was somewhat stale, though Peggy wouldn’t dream of saying so. She ate and drank quietly while Miss Candy updated her on what all the other girls had been doing. Most of them had gotten married, or were engaged to boys who were still making their way home.

“It’s always a bit of a disappointment to see them give up such promising careers,” said Miss Candy.

“They might still change their minds,” Peggy pointed out. “I did.” She wasn’t entirely sure that hoping for a broken engagement was the right note to strike, but she couldn’t think of anything more uplifting to offer.

“Yes, but you’re a rare bird. There aren’t many of us willing to stick it out.”

“Speaking of which,” said Peggy, with an exaggerated glance at her wristwatch, “I must dash. The male agents can wander in at all hours, but if I’m even five seconds late, someone’s bound to kick up a fuss.”

Miss Candy nodded sympathetically.

“But thanks awfully for the tea, and the chat.”

“You’re quite welcome, my dear. I hope it was helpful.”

“Oh, yes, very.” Peggy buttoned up her coat, the envelope nestled against her hip, and smiled.

*

Owing to the mercurial nature of the Tube, Peggy did arrive slightly late to the SSR office, and endured a humiliating ticking off from a junior agent. She locked the purloined letter in a desk drawer, and tried to put it out of her mind. This proved difficult, as it was an especially slow day. She couldn’t help thinking that if they’d only given her some proper work to do, she might not have latched onto this hare-brained investigation with such zeal.

At the stroke of six, she was flying out the door with her hat in one hand and the letter in the other, pretending not to hear the section chief calling her name. Someone else could stay late and do the extra filing, for once.

At home, she devoured a speedy egg and toast, and put the kettle on. While it rumbled to a boil, she changed into her nightclothes, and listened to the news on the wireless without absorbing a single word.

Before pouring the hot water for her tea, she retrieved the envelope from her coat and delicately steamed the flap open.

Once the tea was made, she sat down at her kitchen table to read the letter.

 _My dearest nephew,_ it read, _How wonderful to hear from you at last, and I do hope you are well, after a lengthy search, I was able to locate the newspaper cuttings you asked about, and have enclosed them here, love always, your devoted Aunt Ella._

It was a bewildering letter, on many fronts: formal, vague, grammatically dubious. And it was typewritten, an aggressively impersonal touch. It had to be a fake, though Peggy couldn’t see how.

The three clippings folded into the envelope only muddied the waters further. They all appeared genuine, but Peggy could find no relationship between them. One of them had been cut from the paper in such a way that the last few paragraphs appeared to be missing, the story ending abruptly in mid-sentence.

The letter didn’t follow any of the ciphers she knew, though of course Miss Candy wouldn’t use anything that could be easily cracked. Getting out a pad and pencil, she wrote the alphabet in a neat column, putting a tick for every instance of a particular letter. Nothing stood out at first—until she noticed that the _i_ in _cuttings_ was the only instance of a letter with a tittle.

Microdots were an efficient way to conceal collections photographs or documents. Anyone with a Zapp kit could produce them, and they could be read using a range of magnifiers. Peggy had used them herself, to send messages or instructions to operatives in the field; the boys in Steve’s unit used to give her cheek about slipping him mash notes.

Peggy rifled through her desk until she found the fountain pen that doubled as a microscope.

Sure enough, the tittle over the _i_ contained a wealth of information. Unlike Peggy, Etta Candy hadn’t had any trouble finding reports of recent Wonder Woman sightings: Diana had been spotted all across the European theatre, and in North Africa to boot.

Several of the documents had SSR watermarks—meaning that they’d either been suppressed from the official archives, or simply stolen.

Reading the note over once more, Peggy could have kicked herself for not noticing sooner: the entire thing was one long sentence.

Training her microscope pen over the full stop revealed a series of official documents, in which Captain Steven Trevor was named as a double agent.

Reports suggested that Trevor had an inveterate weakness for pretty girls, and may have been seduced by “an exotic Mata Hari type” that he’d been seen conferring with in London. The two of them were presumed to have been collaborating in an attempt to scuttle the armistice and re-ignite the conflict.

Evidence against Trevor had been supplied by one Sir Patrick Morgan. Morgan had disappeared shortly thereafter, under such suspicious circumstances that it was generally assumed Trevor or one of his associates had silenced him. The mystery woman had also disappeared, but Peggy could hazard a guess as to her identity.

She wondered what the real story was. Somehow, she couldn’t feature Diana as a subversive—or, at least, not a full-blown anarchist. It was all very peculiar.

She supposed there was only one way she was going to get to the bottom of it.

*

Peggy decided to ring Diana from a public call box several blocks away from her flat. One could never be too careful.

Thinking it best to come right to the point, she said, “I think I may have found your Frenchman. I intercepted a letter to him from a former colleague, containing reports about you, and about an American pilot.”

Silence on the line.

“Hello?”

“Yes,” said Diana. “Please. Continue.”

“The pilot is implicated in some dodgy goings-on.” It was as much information as she wanted to give over a public channel.

Fortunately, Diana seemed to understand the need for discretion. “I see.”

“I’ve got a postbox address. I say we pay this fellow a visit, and find out what his stake is in all of this.”

“We?”

“I’m in it now,” said Peggy, pragmatically. “I may as well come along, unless you’d rather I didn’t.”

“Of course. I’ll be glad of your company. What else has your research uncovered?” Diana was too perceptive by half, it seemed.

“Oh, I…” Peggy floundered, uncharacteristically flustered. “Well, it—it appears that you may have been correct. About Dr. Oliver.” It was more than she’d intended to say.

“I’m sorry. I know something of what you must be feeling. My—”

“Please don’t,” she interjected. “I understand that you want—that you’re trying to be helpful. But I’d really rather not. And _especially_ not over the telephone.”

“Very well.”

“I’ll be in touch again,” said Peggy, awkwardly, and rang off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:
> 
> 1\. I couldn’t find a last name for Charlie, so I gave him one. 
> 
> 2\. I know that Peggy misquotes the Scottish play. It’s a very common misquotation, and she’s got a lot going on. ;)


	4. Chapter 4

The following Friday was a bank holiday. Peggy arranged to meet Diana at Victoria station Thursday evening, and take the night ferry to Paris. From there, it was another half-day by train to the village to which the letter had been addressed. They would have just enough time to track down Langlois and question him before Peggy would need to make the return journey in time to report for work on Monday morning.

Diana insisted on buying the ferry tickets, paying the extra two pounds each for the sleeper car. As hesitant as Peggy was to incur any obligation to Diana, she couldn’t help but appreciate the gesture. It was certainly a far cry from some of the crossings she’d endured during the war, crammed in like cattle.

Before they retired to their cabins for the evening, Peggy gave Diana a copy of the letter and a magnifier, so she could review the documents in private before they approached Langlois.

In Paris, they were able to board a train headed north without much delay, and found a table in the dining car.

Peggy, chatting in French with the waiter who brought their coffee, could feel the weight of Diana’s gaze.

When he’d moved on, Diana asked, “How many languages do you speak?”

“Five,” replied Peggy. “English, of course. French and German, fluently. Italian and Russian, adequately. Oh, and I suppose Latin, though one doesn’t have much call to speak it. So actually six, all told.”

“It is your heritage,” said Diana, looking proud. “The Amazons were created to be a bridge between cultures. We are fluent in all the languages of men.”

Peggy managed to refrain from rolling her eyes, but only just. “I wasn’t born speaking half a dozen languages,” she countered. “I saw combat in most of those places. You pick things up rather quickly when you need to know whether someone’s going to shoot at you.”

“My mother was not honest with me.” It was the first time Peggy had seen Diana look genuinely angry. “I had to leave my home to discover for myself what I was. I would like you to know the truth about where you come from.”

“Bit late for that,” said Peggy, briskly. She’d had a mother, one she’d loved very much, and she’d managed to muddle through her entire life without all of this twaddle about Amazons. She wasn’t interested in assuaging a stranger’s guilt over a choice she’d made decades ago.

Diana didn’t argue, but she didn’t back down, either. “If there is anything you wish to ask, I will answer honestly.”

Peggy let a few mile markers flash by the window before she spoke again.

“Were you and Captain Trevor conspirators?” It wasn’t the sort of question Diana had been inviting, but Peggy had nothing to lose by asking.

“No. And you would not be helping me if you believed that.”

Peggy shrugged, conceding the point. “And was he—that is to say, were the two of you…” It was an awkward subject to raise, with waiters passing back and forth.

“Yes.” Diana didn’t say anything more, but it was evident that she still thought of the pilot with great fondness, decades after the fact.

The constant blur of countryside on either side of them was starting to give Peggy an unpleasant, hollow feeling. She wished she’d thought to ask for tea instead of coffee; she’d gotten so used to drinking it American-style that a proper _petit noir_ was enough to jangle her nerves.

Changing the subject, Peggy asked, “Have you been back home since you left?”

“The way is closed to me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Themyscira is shielded from the eyes of men by a veil—a powerful spell.”

“Well, couldn’t you just… go back to the same heading you sailed out from?”

“The landscape outside the veil changes. In leaving the island, you might find yourself anywhere in the world. And there is no guarantee that turning around will bring you home.”

“Are you trying to tell me that Themyscira is an invisible island that moves?” Peggy shook her head stubbornly. “None of that is possible.”

“Yet all of it is true,” said Diana, serene.

And there was no arguing with that.

*

The postmaster knew Monsieur Langlois by sight; he did not know the gentleman’s address, but was able to give Peggy his first name, Albert, and the approximate location of a butcher he frequented.

The butcher did not know his address either, but directed them to a greengrocer who happened to have sent a delivery to his home last winter, after a terrible snowstorm had made it difficult for Langlois to collect his usual purchases.

From what Peggy could gather, Albert Langlois was an entirely unremarkable man. Supposedly a childless widower, he was pleasant and polite, but didn’t attend church or social events. He owned his property outright, but his source of income was unclear. There was talk of an infirmity that kept him at home, though no one knew the particulars.

They found the little cottage on the outskirts of town. It was neatly kept, with a tall hedge on one side and a closely-constructed fence on the other. Monsieur Langlois was obviously not interested in knowing his neighbours’ business—or in them knowing his.

The heavy steel gate presented more of a challenge than Peggy had expected, with a patent lock and tamper-proof bolts. She took a step back to survey the terrain: legging it over the fence was easy enough, but if Langlois wasn’t in a visiting mood and they wanted to get out again in a hurry, the climb would cost them crucial seconds.

She was debating the merits of hacking a hole in the hedge when she heard a sharp squeak. She turned to see Diana with the gate in her hands, its hinges twisted clean off.

“Right,” said Peggy, disconcerted.

Diana set the gate carefully to one side, with a look that suggested Peggy had been moving too slowly for her taste. “Shall we?”

“Let’s.”

Peggy led the charge, taking firm hold of the door knocker and rapping three times. There was a brief flutter of curtains, a long pause, and then the door slowly opened.

Peggy wasn’t sure who or what she’d been expecting, but the handsome older gentleman on the other side of the door wasn’t it.

It was easy to fall into the trap of thinking of blackmailers as being pale, snivelling, wormish. Albert Langlois, counter to type, was tall, tanned, and rather rugged-looking, in spite of the spectacles perched on the end of his nose. It was always harder to tell with outdoorsmen, but by the lines around his eyes and the grey in his hair and beard, Peggy estimated he was in his early fifties. His eyes, his most remarkable feature, were a piercing blue.

Judging from the sharp intake of breath behind her, he wasn’t what Diana had expected either.

“Monsieur Langlois, I presume?” asked Peggy, in French.

“Close enough,” he replied, in English, and gestured for them to step inside.

The inside of the cottage was as tidy as the outside. In the front room, there were bookshelves, slightly bowed under the weight of the volumes they held; a battered writing desk and chair, both piled high with papers; an ancient and threadbare sofa; and very little else. One door opened on a narrow passage that presumably made its way to the kitchen, while another appeared to lead to a bedroom.

Again, nothing about the setting spoke of any sort of nefarious purpose. Peggy wondered whether reading so many detective stories was leaving her ill equipped to recognize evil when she saw it in its natural habitat.

But then she spotted it: on a corner of the writing desk, the 1918 photograph. It had the SSR stamp and accession number in the lower right corner—the original file photo, not a copy. Stolen from the archives. She wondered if Miss Candy had risked mailing it to him, or if they’d somehow managed to make the exchange in person.

“Have a seat,” said Langlois, oblivious to Peggy’s discovery. Not only was he decidedly not French, he sounded American. What was more, he didn’t seem especially surprised by their turning up. “Anywhere’s fine.”

Peggy perched on the end of the sofa closest to the door. He hadn’t locked it behind them, but one never knew.

Diana did not sit. Nor did she speak. Some powerful emotion seemed to radiate off her in waves, but whether it was fury, or grief, or some combination thereof, Peggy couldn’t quite tell.

“I don’t get a lot of visitors,” he said. Peggy waited for the rest of the statement, but apparently Langlois was a man of few words. It was unclear whether he meant it as apology or invitation, but Peggy decided to treat it as the latter.

“A cup of tea would be lovely,” she informed him. “Milk, if you’ve got it. Please.”

“Diana?”

“Tea as well,” said Diana, hoarsely, her gaze still fixed on their reluctant host.

He nodded, and left by the passage.

Diana crossed the room to the sofa and sank down beside Peggy abruptly, as though she didn’t quite trust her legs to hold her.

“He called you by name,” Peggy observed.

“Yes.”

“You know each other.”

“I once thought so,” said Diana, cryptically.

“Do you think he’s the one who’s been trying to track you down?”

“I am certain of it.”

She looked so stricken that Peggy felt a pang of sympathy. “You don’t have to stay, if you’re uncomfortable. I’m quite capable of dealing with him.” Cheerfully, she added, “If he gives me any trouble, I’ll knock him out and search the house.”

To Peggy’s surprise, Diana reached over and took her hand. “I know that I gave up the right to call you my daughter,” she said softly, dark eyes brimming with feeling. “But I want you to know that I am very proud to have had a part in your creation.”

“That’s… awfully decent of you,” said Peggy, flustered. Her first mother would never have said a thing like that at such a moment.

Langlois returned before long with two mismatched cups, and no saucers. Peggy only feigned taking a sip of hers; she wasn’t about to let her guard down, not when Diana had clearly been put on the back foot.

“Let me guess.” He shifted a stack of papers off the desk chair before easing down into it. “You wanted to know who was so interested in the Wonder Woman. And somehow you found me.”

It was plain that Diana either had nothing to say, or was waiting for the right opening. Peggy spoke on behalf of both of them.

“You seem to have a good many friends willing to feed you information and protect your identity.”

“What can I say? I’m a popular guy.”

“One who doesn’t appear to have existed prior to the war.”

“And who are you, exactly?”

“Agent Carter. I’m with the London branch of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. You’re in possession of classified documents, and we don’t take kindly to violations of the Official Secrets Act.” All of which was completely accurate, technically speaking.

“Fair enough. And I’m sure we can get that straightened out. But could you give Diana and me a moment alone first?”

“Right,” Peggy snapped. “Jolly good. I’ll just run along and give you a bit of privacy with the woman you’ve been stalking, shall I?”

He turned to Diana in mute appeal.

Diana shook her head.

“Come on. You’re not afraid of me.”

“I am not,” she conceded. “But she stays.”

Langlois looked from Peggy to Diana, then stood and held out his hands, wrists together, looking resigned.

“No one’s been arrested yet,” Peggy assured him. “Just a civilized chat.”

But Diana nodded once, shortly, and produced a glowing golden rope from some inner coat pocket. She approached Langlois and looped one end around his wrists; it was too loose to bind him in any serious way, but if his sudden flush was any indication, it definitely had an effect.

“What is your name?”

“Steve Trevor.”

“ _Captain_ Steve Trevor?” echoed Peggy, startled.

“Used to be, yeah.”

Diana continued, “How long have you been living under the name Albert Langlois?”

“Three years.”

“And before that?”

“Other names. Sometimes no name. Whatever was needed for—for the work.”

“What work?”

Trevor grimaced, sweating visibly. The golden rope glimmered even more brightly, giving off heat. Peggy thought she could hear a sizzling sound coming from where it was draped over his wrists.

She must have betrayed her concern, because Diana turned and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The Lasso of Hestia compels anyone bound by it to be truthful.” She pronounced the words slowly, gravely, as though they formed part of some arcane ritual. “As long as he does not lie, he will not be harmed.”

Trevor made a pained noise.

“Unfortunately,” Diana continued, flint-eyed, “he is accustomed to deceit.”

“That’s me all over,” he said, sounding exhausted. “How’d you put it? Liar, murderer, smuggler?”

Peggy wandered over to the window, peering out of the curtains at the garden. Despite her line of work, it gave her no pleasure to eavesdrop on people’s private conversations. Particularly in this case.

“What work, Steve?”

His voice was strained as he replied, “Working with the Jedburghs.”

“Spying?”

“Sabotage. Flying people in and out.”

“You knew I was living in London?”

“Not right away, no. But I heard the stories. I knew you were out there.”

“You used your connections to find me.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you didn’t want me to know you were alive.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?” Her voice was suddenly, profoundly sad. “Steve, why?”

Trevor exhaled hard. The sizzling sound intensified. Peggy turned to look; his face was crimson, and he was clearly struggling not to yank his arms away.

“All right,” said Peggy sharply. “That’s enough of that.”

Diana started when she spoke, as though she’d forgotten anyone else was there.

“He’s given us the information we came for,” she added. She touched Diana lightly on the shoulder, just as she’d done to her a moment ago. “It’s his choice whether he wants to tell us the rest.”

Diana nodded, looking abashed. She flicked her wrist, pulling the lasso back. “I’ll be outside,” she told Peggy, already brushing past her to the door.

Trevor gasped, dropping to his knees.

Peggy stayed where she was. She didn’t know what to make of him; pilot-turned-spy, impostor, suspected traitor, saboteur… and, apparently, architect of his own disappearance. A man like that could be capable of almost anything.

After a few moments, his colour began to improve, and he started breathing normally. He got to his feet unaided, but Peggy could tell that it cost him a good deal of effort.

She’d noticed the cane, tucked against the wall next to the writing desk; she crossed the room and handed it to Trevor, who used it to make his way back to his seat.

“Since I’m confessing things,” he said, massaging each of his wrists in turn, “I do know who you are, Agent Peggy Carter.”

“I suppose you’re a fan of Captain America.” Peggy rarely mentioned her connection to Steve before someone else did it for her. But the emotional atmosphere of the room was exhausting, and she didn’t think she could bear any more dancing around the truth.

Perhaps, after this was over, she and Diana could sit somewhere and have a nice mother-daughter cry.

“Who isn’t?” He smirked. “Actually, though, you and I have a friend in common. Monty Falsworth.”

 _Connections in the British intelligence community_ , Diana had said. Falsworth was attached to the Foreign Office these days.

“Isn’t it a small world?” Peggy took a deep breath. “You know, Lord Falsworth never mentioned being acquainted with my father.”

Impossible to tell whether her wild swing had connected; she didn’t know Trevor well enough to read him, and he had the best poker face Peggy had ever seen outside of the mirror.

In the end, he was the first to look away.

His gaze landed on the cup she was still cradling. “You didn’t drink your tea,” he observed.

“I didn’t quite fancy it once I’d got it.” She set the cup on the windowsill. “Sorry to put you out.”

Realization seemed to dawn on him. “You had no idea who I was until I said my name.”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” said Peggy, a bit defensively.

“And the SSR doesn’t know you’re here, do they?” He was sharp, she’d give him that.

“No,” she admitted.

“The two of you came here, thinking I was someone with bad intentions, and decided the best course of action was… what? Knock on my door, make me play host, and then strong-arm me?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it.”

He looked at her, slightly dumbfounded.

“Oh, and Diana tore off your gate.”

“Of course she did,” he said wearily, rubbing his forehead. “Fantastic.”

*

Peggy found Diana standing by the mangled gate, which was still propped up against the fence.

“All right?” she asked.

“I am not ready.”

Peggy stood beside her in silence, watching the colours in the sky bleed into one another. The sun had dissolved into the horizon by the time Diana spoke again.

“I saw him die,” she said. “I mourned him, but I was proud of his sacrifice. I believed that he loved me, that he would have returned to me if he could. And now this! I—” She shook her fists wordlessly for a long moment. “He opens his mouth and _lies_ fall out!” she exclaimed at last.

It wasn’t that Peggy was having some faint stirrings of blood loyalty to Steve Trevor. But she’d known men who’d worked with the Jedburghs. And she knew what it was to risk her own life on the front lines.

“The sort of work he did in the war, it…” Impossible to explain. She took a deep breath and started again. “Do you realize how dangerous it was for him to be working with American soldiers? If he’d been recognized, if his papers had been questioned, if someone had reported him? The punishment for treason is _death_. Even if he’d been cleared of the charges, he’s still a deserter—also death, by the way.”

Diana turned to look at her incredulously. “You _defend_ him?”

“I’m not making excuses for him, all right?” Peggy was beginning to lose her temper. She knew she ought to step away, but instead she pivoted on her heel towards Diana, squaring her shoulders as if bracing for a blow. “Look, it was rotten of him to let you go on thinking he’d died. But, in the end, it isn’t very much different to what you did to me, is it? You thought I’d be better off without you, and you didn’t give me much bloody choice in the matter, until you decided to barge back into my life and drag me into all of this!”

It was more than she’d meant to say. She expected Diana to yell back, or turn and walk off—or, at the very least, a stony silence.

She did _not_ expect Diana to throw her arms around her, sweeping her up in a bruising embrace that robbed her of her breath.

After a moment, she set Peggy down again. “Thank you,” she said, sincerely.

“For sticking my nose into your personal life, or for shouting at you?”

“For speaking your truth.”

Peggy wasn’t sure how to take that; she wasn’t as emotionally exuberant as Diana, but she could hardly be called repressed.

“All right,” she said, prying herself free of Diana’s embrace. “Let’s go hear what else he has to say. And then we’ll go back to London, and put this all behind us.”


	5. Chapter 5

Captain Trevor, as it turned out, had relatively little to say, when he wasn’t under the influence of the Lasso of Hestia.

However, he did turn out to be a passably good baker: when Peggy and Diana returned to the cottage, the aroma of fresh bread was on the air. And so the three of them sat down to bread and jam in the kitchen, along with more tea, which Peggy drank this time. She was fairly certain that whatever else he might be, Steve Trevor was not a poisoner.

Now that she was able to get a closer look at him, Peggy could see that he bore the marks of some dire accident. A thin scar bisected his right eyebrow; his right eyelid and the corner of his mouth drooped slightly when at rest, giving the impression that his face had been split down the middle and hastily reassembled, the two halves offset. The backs of his hands were stippled, pale pink against the tan, like freckles in reverse. And there were more prominent burn marks on the back of his neck.

“How’d you track me down?” He didn’t seem angry, merely curious.

Peggy dug into her handbag and extracted the envelope, placing it on the table. “I intercepted a letter from Etta Candy to her dear nephew.”

“ _Etta_?” Diana’s stare was incredulous. “The letter said _Ella_.”

Seeing that Peggy was at something of a loss, Trevor explained, “Etta is a mutual friend. Though, to be fair, she was my friend first.”

“Lies upon lies,” said Diana, under her breath, her hands balling into fists under the table.

“I made her promise not to say anything to you,” he told Diana. “Believe me, she was not happy about it. But—”

“ _Believe_ you?” Diana repeated. “How can I _believe_ you, when—”

“Okay!” Trevor raised his hands in surrender. “Okay.”

“I found the microdots in this letter,” said Peggy, trying to set the derailed conversation firmly back on its track. “The reports on Diana, and the ones on you. You are aware that she could go to prison for sending you these documents?”

“But she didn’t bring them to me.” He smiled wryly, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly higher than the other. “You did.”

“They were in her outgoing post, addressed here.”

Even as she said it, she recalled the scene: the conveniently placed photo of Trevor, the spotless office with only one place to search, the offer of stale cake that ensured Peggy would be left alone long enough to find what she sought. She should have known an expert codebreaker like Etta Candy could never write such an awkward and obvious fake letter. Peggy must have seemed an utter fool, taking the bait so easily. She hadn’t even bothered to ask the name of Diana’s informant. It explained how Diana already knew so much about Peggy before their first meeting: Miss Candy had known Peggy since she was a child, and was privy to the details of her career.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she muttered.

“Uh huh,” said Trevor. “I made her promise not to _say_ anything. I didn’t make her promise she couldn’t leave a breadcrumb trail to lead the two of you to my house, because obviously I’m not as forward-thinking as I used to be. So this is coded files? On me?”

Both women nodded mutely.

“Well, I didn’t do it, in case that wasn’t clear. Deserter, sure. Traitor, no.”

“The distinction seems academic at this point,” Peggy observed.

“Good thing you’re not my lawyer.”

“You staged your death?”

“No. There was an explosion, and then a very hard landing. I was in a German uniform, so they took me to a German hospital. By the time I made it back to London, the war was over, there was a warrant out on me, and Diana had disappeared. I thought you went home,” he added, addressing Diana directly.

“I didn’t.” Diana’s face was impossible to read. “I can’t.”

For the first time, Peggy really considered the enormity of what Diana had lost. Not only her family, not only her home, but her entire way of life—food, music, art, language. All of those things still existed, but behind a door that was closed to her.

“I know that now.” Trevor’s complete absence of curiosity confirmed what Peggy had suspected: he knew about Themyscira. “I tried to follow you. I retraced the same route I took the first time.”

“You almost drowned the first time,” Diana pointed out.

He shrugged, evading her gaze. “It took me twenty years, but I finally figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” asked Peggy.

“How to get to Paradise Island.”

After making this dramatic pronouncement, and before arriving at any sort of point whatsoever, Steve Trevor took almost an hour to recount the thrilling tale of his crash-landing on Themyscira—in what seemed to Peggy to be unnecessarily lavish detail, given that two of the three of them already knew the story.

“I didn’t realize then,” he concluded at last, “that it isn’t just that the mist protects the island—”

“The veil,” Diana corrected.

“It isn’t just that the _veil_ protects the island,” he repeated, with exaggerated precision. “The island itself appears to move.”

“I told you the island moves,” said Diana. “The night we left. You refused to believe me.”

“I didn’t refuse to believe you. I told you it wasn’t possible. And, for the record, I was right. The island doesn’t actually move—”

“It _does_ move. You just said it moves.”

“I said it _appears_ to move. It’s an illusion. Themyscira stays in one place, geographically—it has to. But the _entrance_ to it moves.”

Peggy felt a bit like an observer at a tennis match. “Can you prove it?” she asked, in an effort to force Trevor to cut to the chase.

“Not empirically. But I have reports, dating back over hundreds of years. Pilots and sailors, accidentally stumbling upon the island, the same way I did.” He carefully unrolled a nautical chart, spreading it over the kitchen table. The chart was marked up with blue and red ink, dates and coordinates written in a swift, irregular hand. “They all describe versions of the same thing I experienced: an impenetrable mist, an unexpected shift in climate and time of day, feeling disoriented, not being able to trust their instruments. A few of the accounts mention making contact with what they describe as savage women, witches, or sirens. Beautiful, but deadly.”

Diana and Peggy scoffed in stereo.

“The thing is, these incidents happened all over the world. I’ve charted the locations of each one, or as close to it as I could get. If my math is right, the entrance to Themyscira doesn’t just wander around aimlessly. Every thirty-three years, it does a complete circuit.” He indicated a blue dotted line that seemed to weave erratically across the earth.

“Thirty-three years,” echoed Peggy. That particular figure distantly reminded her of something she’d heard, or read.

She couldn’t quite put a finger on it until Diana said, “The Athenian calendar. The Amazons have always used it.”

“Of course,” said Peggy. It made perfect sense that an island entirely populated by women would find it more efficient to reckon time by the phases of the moon.

“There are a couple of gaps in the records, but if you track it forward…” Trevor dragged his finger along the blue line, stopping to tap a spot in the north Atlantic. “This is where it should be right now.”

“Here?” Diana stroked the surface of the map, as though its waters were somehow permeable.

“Not exactly a puddle jump, I know.”

Peggy was intimately familiar with those particular coordinates. They were the last ones Howard had been able to triangulate for the _Valkyrie_ —the place where Steve’s radio signal had gone abruptly silent.

She stared fixedly at the map, trying in vain to extinguish the tiny flame of hope flickering in her breast.

There was simply no way.

It couldn’t be possible.

_And yet_.

A crash that made no sound, Howard had said. No wave displacement, no debris. No body, as far as anyone knew.

If Steve had somehow survived the impact… if he had crash-landed, not in the empty, icy Atlantic, but in a warm, shallow spot with a community of strong, capable women close at hand, just as Trevor had all those years ago…

She nearly leapt out of her chair when Diana touched her arm, jolting her back into the present moment.

“Are you well?” Both she and Trevor were looking at Peggy in concern.

“Yes. Er, quite. Just having a bit of a think.” Willing her voice not to tremble, Peggy said to Trevor, “I have a friend who might be able to help us test your theory, if you’re game.”

“Test it?” he repeated, incredulous. “Is your friend the captain of an icebreaker?”

“Nothing so noble or honest,” said Peggy. “But he has his own reasons for being interested in arctic exploration, and his equipment is cutting edge. Can you travel?”

“To the Arctic? My union suit’s at the cleaner’s.”

Unaccountably, Diana coloured up at that.

“Just London, for now,” said Peggy, practically.

“I can handle that.”

“Smashing. I saw a public call box down in the village. I’ll go and ring up my friend and let him know to expect us.”

*

Howard Stark was that particularly inconvenient species of friend who was forever underfoot, yet made himself scarce the moment he was needed.

Mr. Jarvis was, regrettably, not able to say when Mr. Stark would be home—but he would, of course, relay any message.

“Yes, thank you. Please tell him…” Blast. It was impossible to distill things down to the essentials, over the telephone, through an interlocutor. “Tell him I’ll be arriving at Victoria Station from Paris at half-nine tomorrow evening, and that if he’d care to come and collect me, I can make it worth his while.”

There was a long-suffering silence on the line.

“Oh, _honestly_ , Mr. Jarvis,” said Peggy, exasperated. “All right, strike that last part. Just tell him he’s got to come and pick me up. Personally.”

Mr. Jarvis agreed to inform Mr. Stark at the earliest possible opportunity.

*

By the time Peggy returned, Captain Trevor had packed a bag, and he and Diana were managing to speak to each other politely.

Once on the train, however, they studiously avoided one another all the way to Paris. Whenever one of them sat down, the other would find an excuse to get up. They were civil during the changeovers—but in a way that Peggy found exasperating, for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate.

Still, they were adults, and Peggy wasn’t there to tell them how to manage their affairs.

Peggy found, to her surprise, that she quite enjoyed talking to Steve Trevor. He was intelligent, articulate, well-read, and not afraid to dig in and argue with her.

But for all that he liked to talk, he also made a point of listening to _her_ talk, and responding to things she’d said, rather than just continuing on with his monologue as though she hadn’t spoken. She got the sense that he was speaking to her the same way he would speak to a man in her place, which was gratifying.

Looking out the window of the train, she was reminded of the conversation she’d had with Diana on the journey there. “How many languages do you speak?” she asked.

Trevor looked up from his newspaper and did a quick calculation on his fingers. “Seven,” he said, “if you count the ones I know just enough to fake my way through. Why?”

“Idle curiosity.”

He gave her a shrewd look. “We must have similar skill sets,” he observed. “Doing similar work.”

“Rather,” said Peggy.

“You like it?”

“I would if they’d let me get on with it,” she said. “I had a lot more to do during the war. Now, the other field agents treat me like I’m their secretary.”

“Nothing wrong with being a secretary.”

“Of course there’s nothing wrong with it!” she exclaimed, exasperated. “But that’s not what I am. It’s not my skill set, as you put it. Would you like it if your comrades-at-arms expected you to fetch their tea and take minutes in their meetings?”

Smile lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “My handwriting is lousy. And nobody likes my tea.”

She folded her arms.

“Okay,” he conceded, hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m being facetious. You wouldn’t have gotten to where you did during the war unless you knew what you were doing.”

Peggy, who hadn’t expected to carry the point, was rendered momentarily speechless.

“I’ll be honest: I really never questioned the way the system worked, until Diana came along. But once I saw it, I couldn’t stop seeing it. Maybe you have more of an impact than you realize. _Ductus exemplo_.”

“I think you’re giving my colleagues a lot of credit for their powers of observation.”

“Fair point. And that was seven languages, not counting Latin, by the way. I don’t think anyone really speaks that these days. What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” said Peggy, ducking her head to hide her sudden smile.

*

For the first time in years, Peggy found herself operating without a backup plan.

She wasn’t certain of Diana’s exact circumstances but, given the situation, she didn’t think she’d appreciate being asked to accommodate Captain Trevor.

Peggy doubted her landlady’s elasticity of principle would extend quite that far, but it felt a bit rude to ask him to make his own arrangements for the night, on top of recently having barged into his house and threatened him.

Fortunately, Peggy stepped off the train to find Howard waiting on the platform, with an armload of flowers and a thousand-watt smile.

“You actually came,” she declared.

“It’s the first thing you’ve asked me for in years. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.” Howard thrust the enormous bouquet at her.

“Well, I’m about to ask a much larger favour,” said Peggy, handily sidestepping the flowers to take him by the arm. She waved to Trevor, who was further down the platform, collecting his bag. “Would you be able to put someone up for me for a few days?”

Howard, following her gaze, looked alarmed. “Isn’t he a little old for you?”

“Try not to be any more ridiculous than you can help.” Steering him in the opposite direction, she announced, “Diana, this is the friend I told you about. Howard Stark, Diana Prince.”

As usual, Diana treated social conventions as entirely optional; she let Howard take her hand, but rather than allowing him to pay it the traditional courtesy, she gave him a quick, emphatic handshake before letting go.

“I’ve heard your name, Howard Stark.” Her tone that made it clear that whatever she had heard was not to his credit.

“And yet, somehow, I’ve never heard yours,” said Howard, gazing up at her in awe. “One of the great tragedies of my life to date.”

Diana looked amused. “It’s true, then, that money doesn’t buy happiness?”

“As long as your smiles are free, Diana, my money won’t have to.”

“My associates and I have a proposition for you,” said Peggy, inserting herself between Diana and Howard as casually as she could manage. “Can we speak privately?”

Without taking his eyes off Diana, Howard nodded. “I’m all ears, pal.”


End file.
